Sexism and TESOL Materials

Abstract

The paper explores the treatment of women in currently used ESL materials, starting with an analysis of the portrayal of the sexes in current textbooks. Some observations are that women are often less visible than men, are often the butt of many jokes and are often placed in stereotypical roles and assigned stereotypical emotional reactions. Illustrations in the books serve to reinforce the biased linguistic patterns previously noted. The paper then proceeds to discuss terms which have been labelled as prejudicial against women by writers who have been analyzing the question of sexism and the English language. Among the points discussed are the use of the word man as both an independent word and as a bound suffix, the generic he, the boy/girl distinction, and titles used to refer to men and women. All features were found to bias the portrayal of women in the texts. A general discussion follows of what the terms prescriptive and descriptive linguistics mean and whether or not professionals in TESOL should advocate linguistic change. The paper concludes with some suggested changes which can reduce the bias now present in the portrayal of women in ESL materials without sacrificing the overall educational goal of effective and realistic teaching of the English language to non-English speakers. Language learning is necessarily a culture-learning process. In fact, a traditional rationale for foreign language learning has been the expansion of the individual's cultural horizons, the development of tolerance for cultural diversity, and the acquisition of more data for deciding where one fits in the world. It is neither possible nor desirable to separate the linguistic aspects of a language from its surrounding culture; on the contrary, the presentation of culture in language classes is usually set forth as an explicit goal. For instance, the TESOL Guideline for the Certification and Preparation of Teachers